The European Rationalist – In Reason We Trust

I recently went and gave a talk at a modern comprehensive about what it means to be a rationalist and how that differs from being an atheist or a person of faith. I got quite a few letters back, including the following one from a girl that is just 12?. I thought that it merited the attention of all (European) Rationalists. The language is a bit strong in some places, but it shows the tremendous resentment that many (young) people feel and show towards the corruption of European politics. 

Dear Mr Blair,

People talk about the great sea change from the sleaze and political corruption that you ushered in. You went by what people thought was honest, integrity and a new vision.

I am 12 years old, and I was born just about when you became the Prime Minister and lead the Labour Party to victory. I have started to understand something about politics now. I wanted to be a great person and save the planet – perhaps even become a great leader. I have my views on ethics and morality. Until recently, I wanted to be everything that you appeared to be.

You stood alone when all around you were telling that you were wrong. You were convinced about your faith and about the steadfast relationship with the American Political elite.

You sent our troops into Iraq. You refused to talk about your faith in case people thought you were a bit nutty. You refused to come out openly with your convictions in case they collided with the expectations that people may have had of you.

Unlike you with your Father in heavens, I am a committed rationalist like my father on earth. I do not hear any voices that you seem to have heard together with your friend, George Bush.

Having thought about what you said and what you have done, I have come to the following incontrovertible conclusion. You were a psychopath. You said things that enabled you to hold on to power at whatever cost. Your faith was as fragile as your reasoning and words – your public change of your faith was only announced when it would have no impact. You read the intelligence reports that only furthered your prejudices, and you incorporated as much sleaze in your politics as the best of them.  You furthered the interests of your close friends at the expense of impartiality and meritocracy. You made Great Britain an insignificant and political convenience of the United States of America. My opinion of politics and of you as a leader is the same as that of a judge for a convicted criminal. I understand that politics can be dirty, but you’ve brought the name of political policy of our country to the same level as sewers. You stink, and so does everything that you touch and do. I am a non-believer, but I hope you rot in the hell of your faith. Your ego and self-conceited nature has made mockery of the lives of so many innocent peoples who have sacrificed their lives for their countries; and you took these lives as a tribute to you stupidity and your God.

I hope that our leaders in the future will listen to evidence and reason rather than mysterious voices. I hope that they will be honest rather than just pretending to be so. It will take a great deal for someone like me to start believing that being in a position of power can be consistent with honesty, integrity, and a deliverable vision.

Yours forever disillusioned,
[Name withheld by the Editor to ensure privacy of the child]
Age 12?

• Leave a comment... (0)

There are major differences between the way many of us would like societies to function and their current function and form. Indeed, at the founding of this society, my main thrust was to look at processes that we can ‘rationally’ use to get away from a purely GDP-driven world dynamics. It is worth a quick look at the current model of democracy that we live in. For those that want a more basic introduction, please see a previous article and  The Challenge of Democracy.

The competitive élitist and the pluralist models of democracy were conceived between the end of the XIX century and the first half of the XX. The latter wouldn’t have been born without the former, in that obviously bearing similarities with it, and didn’t stop to develop into neo-pluralism until recent decades, in that marking significant differences with competitive élitism and even pluralism itself in its original form.

The aim of this discussion will be to elaborate on these similarities and differences. In doing so, before reaching conclusions it seems appropriate to summarise the two models with the help of the philosophers, sociologists and economists who best represent them: among élitists, Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941), Max Weber (1846-1920) and Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950); and among pluralists Robert Dahl (1915-).

According to the competitive élitist theory, every political system is ruled by a political élite or élites. It was Sicilian social scientist Gaetano Mosca who first introduced this model, along with his fellow Italian contemporary sociologist, neo-Machiavellian Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), whose work was later developed by Schumpeter and Dahl into the pluralist model. Mosca defined democracy as a system in which competing élites are formally chosen or rejected by electors. However, he was convinced that members of Parliament were not actually elected by the people, but rather by their friends who arranged for them to be elected.

This is, in short, Mosca’s concept of élitism, a competition heavily relying on the nature of an organisation (the “friends”) which is nothing less than the bureaucracy described by one of the founding father of sociology, Max Weber, in what is perhaps his most important theory. Weber was the first to introduce the idea that modern political systems are becoming more and more similar among them because they all endure a process of bureaucratisation.

Bureaucracy’s special features include storing information on a vast scale and the fragmentation of functions according to the specialised abilities of experts. In this respect it is worth to recall the work of Roberto Michels (1876-1936), another Italian sociologist, who developed Weber’s thoughts on bureaucracy into the “Iron Law of Oligarchy”: if a form of organisation is necessary for effective action in society, that organisation unavoidably demands a bureaucracy and those bureaucracies, again unavoidably, concentrate power at the summit of a hierarchy, where few people control information, communication and finances. It is a fascinating theory about the civil servants controlling a given organisation ignore or distort the wishes of its membership. It basically is a development of Weber’s account of bureaucracy, and to Weber we go back in our discussion.

Another interesting theory derived from Weber’s work and relevant to our discussion on élitist bureaucracy is that on the “convergence thesis”, claiming that systems apparently very different such as those of the Soviet Union and the United States become increasingly similar because of the expansion of bureaucracy. This is a concept shared by Schumpeter in analysing how the huge size of modern industry determines a convergence between socialism and capitalism because of the need of bureaucratic management in both models of society.

Schumpeter’s pessimistic view of democracy (he didn’t trust humans as being able to act rationally) was that the ordinary citizen should not have any further role in the decision-making process other than taking part in periodic elections to choose between political parties, one or other team of competing leaders. In reinterpreting democracy as a system in which rival élites of party leaders vied for power through election, Schumpeter was to become the link between Weber and Dahl (see below), between the competitive élitist and the pluralist models.

Indeed, his thought could well be seen as the common ground between the two models of democracy we are examining here: we begin to see what in my opinion is the most important similarity between the competitive élitist and the pluralist model (which follows): differently from previous models such as, for example, the Marxist one, they do not tend to describe what would be the best model, nor to construct an example of what they wish to be the model, but they rather take a photograph of the existing model. As David Held explains in his Models of democracy:

Like Weber and Schumpeter, their [the pluralists'] goal was to be “realistic” and “objective” in the face of all those thinkers who asserted particular ideals without due attention to the circumstances in which they found themselves. Since the pluralists’ critique of such thinkers is similar in many respects to the critical treatment offered by Montesquieu, Madison, Mill, Weber and Schumpeter, the focus below will be on the pluralists’ positive understanding of democracy.

Among the many pluralist thinkers, each with his version of the pluralist model, Held chooses as the most representative a political scientist, Robert Dahl, who has in the last five decades dominated the international discussion on democracy for making its definition closer to the Western political system by developing the idea of polyarchy.

The root of this word is Greek, meaning the rule of the many, rather than the rule of the people as in democracy. It is a concept invented in order to describe the conditions of modern democracies, in which society is managed by interest and pressure groups with common goals and the government merely plays the role of mediator among them.

By studying the dynamics of power and influence in small American communities, Dahl came to the conclusion that a pluralist political system has several centres of power and sources of authority, rather than a single regulator. The government shares power with several other entities such as trade unions, industrial associations and business organisations, the administrative bureaucracy, interest groups and pressure groups (based on gender, class, religion, ethnicity…), and non-governmental organisations lobbying for the environment, human rights and civil liberties, etc.

Another original feature of pluralist theory derived from the study of community power is that a low rate of participation in democratic process is not necessarily regrettable. On the contrary, apathy in political involvement could even be seen as healthy in meaning trust by the people in those who govern them, while history shows that excessive participation often coincided with undesirable phenomena like fanaticism in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and communist Soviet Union.

David Truman (1913-2003), who shares with Dahl one of the longest ever memberships of the American Political Science Association, adds to the theory the explanation on how stability can be achieved in such a dispersive decision-making system: actually, “only the highly routinized governmental activities show any stability”, he writes in The Governmental Process, while organised interest groups may only play segments of the whole structure, each of them being too weak to impose its “Tyranny” (a concept of society fragmentation that Truman owes to Madison).

Pluralists like Dahl and Truman agreed with Schumpeter that the distinctive feature of democracies is the method of selection of politicians, but here ends the similarity and begins the difference: in fact, they broadened Schumpeter’s and Weber’s ideas to apply them to a multiplicity of social actors, using the same conceptual framework to show how the concentration of political power in the hands of competing élites was not inevitable.

What follows is a summary of other similarities and differences that I have noticed between the two models, in David Held’s presentation of them.

Similarities:
Both models find their principle of justification in the need to obstruct the emergence of exceedingly powerful political factions and leadership.
Among their key features, the two models share the principle of a healthy electoral competition between rival political élites and at least two parties.
Again among their key features, both models value the independence of a well-trained bureaucracy as a fourth pillar along the classical tripartition of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary (and the system of checks to balance their powers).

Differences:
On an eminently philosophical dimension, pluralist Dahl maintains that the legitimacy of a political system ought to originate from “the depths of political culture”, while according to Schumpeter the simple acceptance of a competitive electoral system means a belief in its legitimacy.
Analogously, together with fellow pluralists Dahl insisted that democracy is firmly berthed in the harbour of society’s consensus, hence no politician would be successful in leaving a lasting impression unless in tune with a nation’s political culture; on the other hand, before him Schumpeter stressed instead the profound impact on democratic politics made by the direction given by competing (and competent) élites.
Last in this list, but probably the most noteworthy, is a feature of polyarchy limpidly explained by Held:
The democratic character of a regime is secured by the existence of multiple groups or multiple minorities. Indeed, Dahl argued that democracy can be defined by “minorities government”. For the value of the democratic process lies in rule by “multiple minority oppositions”, rather than in the establishment of the “sovereignty of the majority”. Weber’s and Schumpeter’s scepticism about the concept of popular sovereignty was justified, albeit for reasons different from those they themselves gave.

In conclusion, and as an attempt to answer the assessment’s second question, on which of the examined models I consider to provide the more convincing picture of contemporary democracy, it is quite obvious to point at the more recent and developed model, in its neo-pluralist version, because it is easy to recognise in it an important element which in our era of globalisation we have grown used to: the increasing influence of corporate capitalism over the other actors of pluralism. This represents another difference between the competitive élitist model and pluralism in its newer, neo-pluralist variant. Neo-pluralist author Charles Lindblom (1918-) writes:

Because public functions in the market system rest in the hands of businessmen, it follows that jobs, prices, production, growth, the standard of living, and the economic security of everyone all rest in their hands. Consequently, government officials cannot be indifferent to how well business performs its functions. Depression, inflation, or other economic disasters can bring down a government. A major function of government, therefore, is to see to it that businessmen perform their tasks.

Therefore, a government will follow a political agenda that is polarised towards corporate business, causing erosion of parliamentary politics and the marginalisation of those excluded from the political agenda itself. This is, in extreme synthesis, what neo-pluralism represents or, better say, what neo-pluralism differentiates itself from earlier pluralism. It is somehow ironic, although hardly surprising in consideration of the foreseeable counterattack of conservative forces, that the dissolution of pluralism into crystallised schools of neo-pluralist thought was the consequence of the 1968 social movement and the political polarisation subsequent to it, for it was precisely the 1968-69 social unrest in Europe and North America to highlight all the limits of a pluralist theory which reached its climax of popularity between the 1950s and the 1960s.

Neo-pluralist thinkers adjusted their theories. For example, in spite of being an admirer of free market economy, Lindblom himself grew increasingly uncomfortable in respect of the asymmetries of power that he witnessed in favour of big corporate business. Remedies to this unbalance are to be found in the future models of democracy which David Held delineates in conclusion of his book – democratic autonomy and cosmopolitan democracy – but are not the subject of this essay.

The competitive élitist and the pluralist models 
by Londradical

• Leave a comment... (0)

We all spend a great deal of time criticizing those in and out of power for their conduct and exercise of leadership or lack thereof, but rarely do we try to elucidate the qualities that we would like to see in a leader. It is important that we do this.   Politics is the acquisition and exercise of power, and real harm can come when people who are unsuitable for the job attempt it.  Here are some starting points for such a discussion.

In his important lecture “Politics as a Vocation”  the eminent German sociologist and political economist Max Weber identified two kinds of  “deadly sins” in politics: a lack of objectivity and a lack of responsibility.  In an essay early last year DHinMI discussed the latter sin, irresponsibility, in connection with Ralph Nader.  This essay discusses the need for objectivity, or “seeing clearly.”  The qualities that Weber sees as necessary in politics are very similar to qualities that Chinese sages hundreds and even thousands of years ago also counseled and trained leaders to develop, no doubt reflecting Weber’s extensive studies of Eastern thought.

Weber delivered his lecture in 1918 to a group of students as Germany was undergoing the revolution that ended the rule of the Kaisers, a moment when careers in politics and political participation would be open to a far greater number of people.  Toward the end of the lecture he discussed the inner enjoyments a life in politics could provide and the personal conditions or traits needed for such a vocation.  Along with passion, which Weber stressed was not “sterile excitement” but deep devotion to a cause or purpose, and a sense of responsibility, a politician or activist needs a sense of balance and proportion. 

Weber states,

This is the decisive psychological quality of the politician:  his ability to let realities work upon him with inner concentration and calmness.  Hence his distance to things and men.  ‘Lack of distance’ per se is one of the deadly sins of every politican. . . . For the problem is simply how can warm passion and a cool sense of proportion be forged together in one and the same soul?  Politics is made with the head, not with the other parts of the body or the soul.  And yet devotion to politics, if it is not to be frivolous intellectual play but rather genuinely human conduct, can be born and nourished from passion alone.  However, that firm taming of the soul, which distinguishes the passionate politician and differentiates him from the ’sterilely excited’ and mere political dilettante, is possible only through habituation to detachment in every sense of the word.  The ’strength’ of a political ‘personality’ means in the first place the possession of these qualities of passion, responsibility and proportion. 

Weber notes the perils and seductions that accompany the striving for power. Power can never become an end in itself.   “The sin against the lofty spirit of his vocation, however, begins where this striving for power ceases to be objective and becomes purely personal self-intoxication, instead of exclusively entering the service of ‘the cause.’”    A politician

is constantly in danger of becoming an actor as well as taking lightly the responsibility for the outcome of his actions and of being concerned merely with the ‘impression’ he makes.  His lack of objectivity tempts him to strive for the glamorous semblance of power rather than for actual power. . . . The mere ‘power’ politician may get strong effects, but actually his work leads nowhere and is senseless. . . . In this, the critics of ‘power politics’ are absolutely right.  From the sudden inner collapse of typical representatives of this mentality, we can see what inner weakness and impotence hides behind this boastful but entirely empty gesture.  It is a product of a shoddy and superficially blase attitude towards the meaning of human conduct; and it has no relation whatsoever to the knowledge of tragedy with which all action, but especially political action, is truly interwoven.

So how does one cultivate Weber’s objectivity or what i would call “seeing clearly,” and find balance?

Seeing clearly, the product of deep listening, is the fundamental prerequisite to all effective action.  This means above all seeing the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be or fear it is.  True clarity is neither excessive optimism nor a paralyzing pessimism.  Seeing clearly means not being blinded by by unresolved emotions, especially anger, fear, greed (self-seeking) or ambition.  Not being preoccupied with our own needs.  Not bringing so much baggage to a situation that we cannot appreciate nuance and small changes.  it means really listening to what someone else is saying, not immediately jumping to conclusions and reacting to what we think they are saying.  It means treating each situation freshly, reacting to the actual conditions that are presented, not reacting based on what happened in the past or what we assume to be the case.

As Weber noted, this requires a kind of detachment, or more properly non-attachment.  Part of being able to see clearly is avoiding being caught by distractions, desires, emotions and ambitions.  It is learning to find the stillness in the midst of the noise and activity all around us, and in that stillness, listening to our own intuition, our own cultivated judgment, our own inner ethical sense.  It also requires sufficient independence and integrity to avoid being overly beholden to supporters and patrons.  Seeing clearly often reveals avenues of action that might not have been initially apparent.  it is often the only way to see chinks in the opponent’s armor, and novel ways to resolve problems or extricate self, party or country from a difficult situation. 
Finding balance and proportion.  Like the Greeks’ concept of the golden mean, Chinese sages teach us to find a balance between extremes.  In the Eastern concept of yin and yang, symbolized by the familiar interlocking design, opposites are seen as complementary halves of an integral whole, with each one partaking in some measure of the other.  Good contains within it elements of bad and vice versa.  No position is wholly correct or incorrect.  Neither side can, or should, absolutely prevail; attempting to bring that about only caused the tide to turn back toward the other pole.  There is always a higher vantage point in which opposites, necessary for navigating the relative world, are transcended.  Being able to step back from the conflict of the moment and to see things from a broader vantage point is necessary if one is to maintain a sense of proportion and not be crushed by setbacks and individual tragedies.  Balance also means caring for ourselves enough so that the self can ultimately become less important than the cause.  But while one should give oneself wholeheartedly to a cause, in the end what is important is not who wins but that the system and ultimately life continue. 

Ethics and Politics.  Because politics involves the use of power and often requires difficult choices, a particular kind of ethical sense is needed.  Only a very principled and disciplined person can hope to properly make those difficult choices,  because only such a person is free of the self-seeking and fatal blindness that prevent one from seeing clearly.  Only one who maintains a sense of balance and distance can appropriately determine whether and when dubious measures are ever justified in pursuit of worthy goals and when a sense of responsibility dictates that they are not justified.

Someone unwilling ever to compromise or to use force or dubious means shpu;d not become involved in politics, says Weber, but neither should someone who lacks the selflessness and ethical sense to know that some means cannot be justified because their use will irretrievably damage the cause, and perhaps also the whole country, humanity or the planet.

Finally, politics requires not only discipline but toughness, what Weber called “the trained relentlessness in viewing the realities of life, and the ability to face such realities and to measure up to them inwardly.”  Speaking in 1918, at the birth of the infant German Republic and only two years before his own death, Weber was under no illusions about what might lie ahead.  “Not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness, no matter which group may triumph externally now.”   

He concluded,

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.  It takes both passion and perspective.  Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth-that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.  But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word.  And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes.  This is necessary right now or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today.  Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point if view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer.  Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.

Potentially facing our own dark night, those who care seriously about politics must demand no less of ourselves, our colleagues and our leaders.

Politics and Ethics, By Mimikatz

• Leave a comment... (0)

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at political systems and ideologies. This should enable the reader to better understand the democracies we live. We’ll start off with the basics and then move on to special interest groups and the sensitive issues surrounding corruption of various political systems, including our own.  

What is Politics?

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. It is the authoritative allocation of values. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

In its most basic form, politics consists of “social relations involving authority or power”. In practice, the term refers to the regulation and government of a nation-state or other political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply government policy.

In a broader sense, any situation involving power, or any maneouvring in order to enhance one’s power or status within a group, may be described as politics (e.g. office politics). This form of politics “is most associated with a struggle for ascendancy among groups having different priorities and power relations.”

Political science (also political studies) is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power. Related areas of study include political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behavior, and public administration, which examines the practices of governance.

Why Study Political Ideologies?

The answer to this question is quite simple. Students of politics are concerned about and interested in the various principles of that intellectual discipline. It may never be known conclusively whether humans alone are capable of formulating and then utilizing abstract ideas to govern their behavior. None can dispute however that ideas about politics constitute a most important element in that realm.

Nelson Mandella, imprisoned for twenty years for his advocacy of racial equality in South Africa, was possessed of an idea about politics. The leader of the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, planned for years during his exile near Paris, to return to his homeland with a plan of purification and change to a pure Islamic state. College students joining together in a march to protest college policies regarding ROTC programs have some motivating idea behind their actions.

While ideas are not in and of themselves ideologies, they are part of the raw material needed to produce a full fledged ideology. As will be seen below ideologies have special qualities that set them apart from other political entities. When combined with other factors such as effective leadership, persuasive rationale’, timely development, and popular appeal political ideology goes a considerable distance in the direction of comprehending things political. Nature of Political Ideologies Ideas have been called “immaculate perceptions” of an imperfect reality. This may also be applicable to the concept of political ideologies.

At least from the time of Classical Greece to the present thoughtful individuals have attempted to devise concepts regarding the nature of politics. These ideas have concerned political reality as it is perceived (descriptive observations), as it ought to be (normative observations), and some have gone so far as to suggest methods for altering reality in order to achieve the desired goal (prescriptive observations). Aristotle attempted to describe the political structures that existed in his era by constructing a trichotomy of types with two variations of each:

1. Rule by the Few – aristocracy /oligarchy
2. Rule by the Many – polity/democracy
3. Rule by One – monarchy/tyranny.

This rudimentary but astute design constitutes a set of concepts regarding politics but falls short of what is termed “ideology.”

Whereas ideas about politics may range from the simple to the extraordinarily complex, ideologies occupy a special niche of these “immaculate perceptions.” At their very core ideologies offer a means to understand, explain and to change political reality. There are, in other words, descriptive, prescriptive, and normative elements in political ideologies.

Sometimes hidden within these elements are assumptions about the fundamental nature of human beings, their proper relationship to one another, the ultimate destiny and purpose of life itself, man kind’s place in the grand scheme of things, the existence of principles of justice beyond those created by man, and in general stated or unstated presumptions of a most basic nature. Discovering, analyzing and challenging these elements of ideologies will enable the thoughtful student an opportunity to discover within him/her self values and beliefs that were theretofore only dimly realized.

Of equal importance is the developed ability to thoughtfully critique ideologies that otherwise might go by the wayside without being understood correctly. Characteristics of Political Ideologies Political ideologies have a number of characteristics that distinguish them from other related concepts. At the outset they constitute a rather comprehensive set of interrelated views on the nature of politics both as it is and as it should be.

As with most, if not all, human concepts, ideologies are derived from perceptions about reality and quite often from opinions about perceived problems in the human condition. It is perhaps in the nature of a significant number of human beings to be continuously dissatisfied with existent conditions. For some the answers to noted injustices lie in the relationship of mankind to God or to some other entity larger than ourselves. For others the faults are found not in the stars but in ourselves. These are the ones who may then devise political ideologies.

Frequently an ideology is initially the product of a single individual working in splendid isolation. Perhaps the best known if not a perfect example of this would be Karl Marx working for years in the archives of the London Museum. His observations led him to the conclusion that great injustices (and ultimately historical imbalances) existed that were inevitably doomed to destruction by the inexorable forces present in human society, particularly found in the process called dialectic materialism and economic determinism. Seldom, it seems, are ideologies initially produced as a consequence of group effort. It must be recognized however that the product of one person’s thoughtful reflections on the political dimensions of the human condition necessarily encompass and build on the work of preceding commentators.

Marx’s debt to the Hegelian dialectic is widely recognized. Hegel’s own intellectual advancements were based in considerable measure on traditions of Aristotelianism present in German intellectual traditions for centuries.

The second characteristic of political ideologies has already been suggested: they are produced by intellectual elites. Only those individuals with the necessary interests and skills (intellectual and communicative) are capable of devising comprehensive analyses of politics. Although any particular ideology may be modified and more completely developed with the involvement of many people over considerable periods of time, there is more often than not a single individual who may be correctly viewed as the founder if not the ultimate creator of that ideology.

Invariably the ideas of this creative individual are published in some form and disseminated among other potentially sympathetic individuals. On occasion, such as in the development of Nazism, rhetorical development may precede written elaboration. Adolph Hitler did not put on paper his hate filled views until some four years after the Nazi party had commenced its campaign to achieve power in post-World War I Germany. Dissemination and propagation of the ideology among the mass population constitutes a most important third element in political ideologies, at least of those that become forces in the world.

As long as an ideology remains only of interest to a very few intellectuals, it is unlikely to become an agent of great change in society. At this point an ideology becomes attached to what may be called a “movement.” Movements in politics by definition involve large numbers of people. These numbers seldom constitute a majority of the adult population but may involve millions of people at one time or another.

Feminism, as an example, is viewed by some as an ideology and by others as a movement. It may also be seen as an amalgam of each. It should be noted however that there have been instances when a social theory that had political implications became accepted by both political and intellectual elites but had no wide spread public following nevertheless produced important governmental policies For example, what was termed “Social Darwinism” did in the United States have very significant policy implications for the United States Supreme Court in a variety of its decisions in the latter part of the 19th Century. Despite the fact that “Social Darwinism” was never propagated widely among any large numbers of people and certainly did not become a “movement” it did provide intellectual justification for a “hands off” or laissez faire array of policies of United States governments.

Contrary to popular belief political ideologies are not fixed or static but are subject to changes, sometimes of a fundamental nature. “Revisionism” may be viewed as a curse by purists or as necessary refinements by those recognizing the imperfections in the original idea. Changes may be resultant from reasoned critiques of the initial set of concepts or they may flow from the clash of the initial concepts with a reality that simply cannot be reconciled with the ideology.

Lenin, for example, was forced by the reality of the continuation of the capitalistic states to devise the theory of imperialism as the final stage of capitalism. This “modification” of Marx was an attempt to explain why the initial predictions of continuing accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and increasingly intolerable poverty for the workers did not come about in the manner that Marx indicated. Similarly Mao Zedong found it imperative to adapt Marx to the special conditions in China in order to utilize communist ideology in that setting. A fifth trait of ideologies concerns their susceptibility to oversimplification and distortion.

Political concepts often times are quite complex and require, if they are to be understood thoroughly, extensive study, thoughtful qualifications, limited application, time frame containment and a host of other delimiters. For those who wish to use the ideology as a vehicle to obtain change in politics and society these “fine points” may be impediments to obtaining popular support. In the name of political expediency slogans may replace concepts, rallying cries may drown out qualifications, and what emerges is far from the essence of the original set of ideas.

This distortion of the original ideology brings forth the final characteristic needing elaboration. This concerns the relationship of ideology to the political movement that frequently develops as a consequence of the ideology itself. This extension of an ideology into the realm of political action gives a whole new dimension to the original set of concepts. At this point the ideology becomes a powerful motivator of individual and group behavior. The oversimplifications and distortions mentioned above enable movement leaders to develop emotional appeal for the goals of the ideology. This emotional commitment on the part of members of the movement is a powerful force of change in the world of politics.

Eric Hoffer, in his eminently readable and insightful book THE TRUE BELIEVER spot lighted how belief in a cause may produce one of the most formidable and elemental powers in human affairs: the fanatic. Such “true believers” in the cause, in the movement, in the ideas have no reason whatsoever to leave undone anything that would produce the desired end. Their property, their very lives (and those of anyone else) are all of secondary importance to the CAUSE.

The role of leadership is critical in this phase of the transformation of an ideology into a movement. Often the individual or individuals who were responsible for the ideology find themselves supplanted by firebrands, organizers, and spellbinding speakers who pay lip service to the founders but care little for the ratio decidendi in the concepts so dear to those who made the initial intellectual contributions. Lenin is reported to have once asserted that what communism meant for the Soviet Union was a means to rapid industrialization and its attending political/military/economic power. It has been noted with probable accuracy that Marx would have been surprised and possibly appalled at the manner in which his concepts of Communism had been implemented by Lenin, Stalin, the Khimer Rouge and other individuals and groups claiming the mantle of Communist.

The characteristics of political ideologies may be summarized by noting their following traits. They are:

1. a coherent set of views on politics
2. produced by intellectual elites 
3. dissemination among the mass population
4. subject to alteration 
5. susceptible to distortion and oversimplification
6. powerful motivators of human behavior
7. manipulated by political movement leaders

Having now examined some of the more important aspects of political ideologies in general, a review of selected examples is in order. Those chosen here represent the primary ideological developments in the political realm but by no means constitute the whole of the spectrum. First there will be considered what have traditionally been referred to as “moderate” ideologies. Following this will be the more “extreme” varieties and then an overview of unfolding political viewpoints that may evolve into full blown ideologies.

INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES, Dr. Jim L. Riley

• Leave a comment... (0)